


Oversharing

by Verity_Kindle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, M/M, accidental magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 15:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13662174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verity_Kindle/pseuds/Verity_Kindle
Summary: When a spell goes wrong, the group tries to deal with the fallout. Fjord’s biggest concern is for Caleb’s well-being, while Caleb’s is...complicated.Otherwise titled, Why Magic and Secrets Don’t Mix: The Autobiography of Caleb Widogast.





	Oversharing

**Author's Note:**

> Critical Role came for my soul so hard in Campaign Two. I have a list of fics I want to write so badly, if life will cooperate. Hope you enjoy this one! Honestly this was more of an exercise in all of their voices than anything else, and I’m more pleased with the voices than the plot, so we’ll pretend it’s a success and move on, shall we?

It was sort of hard to notice, at first, which made it all the worse in retrospect. 

Caleb had discovered a new spell scribbled in the margins of an ancient book they’d recovered from the lair of some semi-sentient creature they’d dispatched along the road. Everyone but Nott had given varying degrees of eye-rolls at the find. They’d been traveling together long enough by now that they all knew there’d be nothing like decent interaction with the man until he’d squirreled the information away. Fjord had been forced to play the adult, forbidding Caleb from trying to copy and study the spell as they walked along. 

“Night’s soon enough,” he’d said firmly. “Can’t have you wandering off the edge of a cliff cause you’ve got your nose pressed deep in those books.”

The way Caleb had gone all quietly offended at that had Jester giggling, whispering to Molly that she was going to draw Caleb looking just like a ruffled-up Frumpkin with hair standing up all along his back. It had done the trick, though, and the book had disappeared somewhere in Caleb’s ragged assortment of clothing. He was lost in the idea of the new magic, so that even Nott couldn’t get more than a few words out of him. When they made camp that evening in a somewhat sheltered cluster of trees near a small stream, they lost him to the book entirely. It was something they were all becoming used to, and they went about making a fire, cooking dinner, and preparing for the night with a smooth, easy rhythm that flowed around the motionless wizard. Fjord grinned at the sight, and forced himself to refrain from passing a hand through Caleb’s red hair every time he passed. 

Yasha took the book away from him to force him to eat, and Caleb came out looking dazed, eyes glowing with excitement. 

“I cannot quite be sure, but I think it is a spell that would allow me to create a shield around us all,” he told them, hunched forward in a way that made Fjord’s shoulders ache in sympathy. “A projection of magic energies, certainly, and the text seems to indicate protection. It is difficult, though. The translation seems to have run through Celestial before-“

Beau cleared her throat loudly. “So you’re saying you can shield us in battle?”

Caleb shrugged. “It is possible. I will not be certain until I have had a chance to study it thoroughly. The translation-“

“Well, that would be mightily appreciated,” Fjord cut in, eager to avoid a repetition of the last time they’d been through this. Somehow, not all of their party members were as interested in parsing ancient texts as Caleb seemed to be, and he, in turn, could be remarkably dense about how likely people were to start flicking bits of food at him to make it stop. “Since we seem to keep finding ourselves in the oddest sorts of trouble.”

“Yes!” Nott agreed, her yellow eyes shining feverishly. “A shield, Caleb! That would really help to keep you safe!”

“Only if it’s more effective than the last few tricks you’ve tried,” Molly pointed out from where he was lounging across a few uncomfortable-looking rocks. His tail flicked, cat-like, through the air. “Your spells have failed as often as my swords, of late.” 

Caleb didn’t respond. He set his plate aside, food mostly untouched, and gave it a subtle shove towards Nott as he went to retrieve his book. They all ignored the horrible gobbling noises that followed. 

“Okay, then!” Jester called cheerfully. “We will see you in a few days, when you remember that you have ears that work!” Caleb shot her a quick glare, and she waved at him. “Don’t worry! We won’t do anything to you while you’re not paying attention!”

“No, we won’t.” Fjord’s quiet certainty made Caleb relax a bit, and with a happy sigh the ragged wizard collapsed by the fire, already squinting down at the faded text in the dim light. “It ain’t nice to tease, Jester,” he said quietly. “Lookit how happy he is.”

She frowned prettily, tossing her hair. “He could be having lots more fun with the rest of us if he didn’t get so obsessed about his stupid books!” 

“Feeling ignored, huh?” Beau said with a lazy grin, stretching and rising from the ground in one smooth motion. “You give me a hand with these dishes and I’ll find some kind of fun for us.”

“Deal!” 

It wasn’t long before they’d roped Nott into the strange game they made up - some crazy combination of martial arts, hide-and-seek, and charades that made Fjord’s head hurt. Molly and Yasha watched, leaning against one another with a familiarity the rest of the group had not yet reached. The murmur of Caleb’s quiet studies was a pleasant background noise, and Fjord nodded silently up to the stars as he considered. This was good. Life was good. 

It didn’t last. 

Later, it would be a heated topic of debate - had the antics of the group disturbed the creatures, or would they have been attacked regardless? Whatever the truth, the beasts were on them in a split second, disturbing the peacefulness of the evening with screams and unearthly howls. They were more batlike than anything else, but they glowed with an ethereal light that was profoundly disturbing. They also had fantastic aim. Molly shouted in pain as a fist-sized stone connected with his head, dropping down out of the darkness without warning. Yasha jumped to her feet, growling as she pulled out her sword, but the creatures were circling the camp at a height she could not reach. 

The trio of troublemakers came dashing back in, close to the fire, and Fjord called up his falchion as everyone began to shout at once. 

“-don’t know what they are, but they almost pulled Nott’s ears off!”

“We can’t reach ‘em! Caleb, what should we do?”

“Come down here and fight!” Beau shouted at the sky, and then flung herself aside, nimbly avoiding another rock. They were pelting down on all sides now, and the group shuffled and staggered as everyone tried to find a way to help. Jester muttered a plea to her deity and threw up something that blazed with power, but seemed to fizzle away without effect. Beau, Yasha, Molly, and Nott arranged themselves defensively, but there was nothing they could do from their position on the ground. Fjord grasped his falchion tightly, sending a blast of eldritch energy skyward and giving a shout of triumph as one of the small forms screeched and plummeted to the earth. One down, and dozens to go. 

“Seems like a shield would come in really handy right now!” Beau bellowed, deflecting a falling stone with a high kick and wincing at the pain it brought. “Come on, magic boy!”

“I am not even certain that’s truly what it does!” Caleb’s voice had gone high and breathy the way it always did during fights, and he grunted in pain as a stone hit him solidly in the shoulder. “I haven’t finished studying it!”

Molly wiped away blood that was already streaming into one eye, and brandished his sword uselessly at the sky. “And you won’t have a chance to, either, if we don’t do something!” The pace of the volley was increasing, and Nott gave a harsh cry of pain as she was knocked off her feet by a particularly large stone that rebounded off the ground and hit her in the face. Snarling, she was up again in a second and darting for the nearest tall tree as if she was going to attack straight up the trunk. 

Caleb moved faster than Fjord could believe, intercepting the little goblin girl and hauling her out of the branches. “You have no wings,” he reminded her breathlessly. “Best to keep to the ground.” He ducked back into their protective huddle, depositing Nott on the ground as he reached for his spell book with the other hand. “Hold on for just a moment!” 

It was an impossibly long moment, filled with pained exclamations and shouts of frustration mingled with the screech of the monsters overhead. Fjord kept blasting away, missing more often than he hit, and he knew he wasn’t making a dent in their numbers. With a murmur of words and a sudden flash of blue light, Caleb finished casting the spell. A gust of magical energy expanded out from him to encompass all of them, and Fjord breathed a sigh of relief. 

The next stone slammed into the back of his neck so hard he saw stars. 

“So we’re running then?” Molly asked rhetorically, already grabbing Beau’s arm and beginning to move. “Come on, human-eyes, just follow where I lead!”

There was nothing for it. They grabbed what they could and dashed into the darkness, following the course of the steam. Yasha was already almost out of sight, and Jester could be heard scolding as she ran, though it was unclear who she was talking to. Nott had Caleb by the hand, chanting a never-ending string of directions at him as they ran through the dark, and Fjord brought up the rear. The bat-things pursued them for close to a mile, pelting them all the way, and when they finally withdrew it was all the group could do to gather themselves again. There was no comfortable fire or sheltering trees here, and half of their equipment had remained behind them. 

“That was not even a little bit funny,” Jester said indignantly, scrunching her face up in disgust as she set about trying to patch up the most wounded among them. “Where is the joke in this, huh?”

“The joke was that shield spell,” Beau grunted, tugging a bandage tight around her foot. “Super glad we waited to try that one instead of just booking it.”

“Caleb was trying his best!” Nott said shrilly, jumping up to stand in front of the wizard, who was peering down at the words in the darkness as if he had some prayer of being able to read them. “Nobody else couldn’t do nothing, neither!” 

“That is too many negatives,” Caleb said, voice flat and toneless. “I did say I was not certain about the spell, you know. I would not have tried it so soon if we had not been in a bit of a pickle.”

“Just goes to show, you can’t trust a book because of its cover,” Molly said, shrugging lethargically and then wincing at the movement. “More than one way to skin a cat, and - I’m not making a lot of sense, am I? I think those rocks scrambled my wits as much as they did Caleb’s magic.” 

“Some magic,” Jester grumbled. “Now I’ve lost my sketchbook and I can’t even draw pictures for the Traveler about all this!” She finished tending to Yasha and headed over to Molly, wiggling her fingers at him, calling back over her shoulder, “Hey, Caleb! Maybe your magic would work better if you took a bath, you know?”

Caleb winced, a hardly noticeable reaction in the darkness, and put a hand out to Nott. “Let me see?” he asked gently, tuning the others out as he looked after the little one. Fjord felt a sudden wave of regret, a pulse of guilty sorrow wash over him, and he forced himself to his feet, going to start a new fire. They had no business blaming Caleb for being unable to save them. It wasn’t like the rest of them had been able to do much. 

They slept uneasily that night. 

Fjord and Yasha went back to the old campsite early the next morning while the rest were still asleep, leaving Beau sitting up on watch. She waved them off with the most awkward faux-casual salute he’d ever witnessed, and Fjord had to hide a grin. Sometimes some of the people he was traveling with made him feel positively ancient; more often, he found himself grateful to have reached an age where he was comfortable in his own skin. Yasha was a quiet travel companion, and they found their equipment undisturbed. They stamped out the remaining embers of the old fire and headed back to find the others, burdened with everything they’d left behind. 

They were about five minutes away from camp when Fjord found himself grinning stupidly. The warmest rush of fondness struck deep in his heart, seeming to fill his whole chest. He cleared his throat awkwardly, shaking his head, and Yasha looked at him, mismatched eyes narrowed in confusion. 

“That Nott,” he explained, for no apparent reason. “She’s something else, ain’t she?”

“Yes,” Yasha said slowly. “It’s very strange. I hadn’t planned to like her.”

“You can’t not, though, can you?” Fjord shook his head, wonderingly. “I mean, sure, the teeth, and her table manners are horrifying, but she’s just the most endearing little bundle of awfulness I ever met.”

Yasha’s face twitched. “Yes,” she agreed. “She gave me flowers, you know.” 

Fjord’s heart gave a spasm of joy at that. “Think I’ll give her my share of the meat this morning,” he murmured. 

Nott was fussing over Caleb when they arrived back in camp, and everyone swarmed round to claim their possessions with a desperation that spoke to how very little they all owned. Jester snatched up her journal with a cry of delight and skipped over to Nott. 

“Here!” She thrust out her hands to the tiny goblin. “I’m in such a good mood! I want you to have more stones for your collection. Take whatever you want!”

Fjord grinned down into the fire as he started cooking breakfast, suddenly and overwhelmingly grateful to Jester for her kindness to Nott. Jester was good people, that was certain. He threw the last of the dried meat in to stew in what Beau liked to call “breakfast horror soup,” and what Fjord preferred to call “if you have a problem with it, do the cooking your own damn self.” It wasn’t a name that was catching on. Catching sight of Caleb’s precious new book on the ground, he scooped it up and brought it over himself, offering it wordlessly. 

“Oh,” Caleb said, staring at it with wide eyes. “You brought the book back?”

He had screwed up. Fjord felt it with deepest certainty, a sick sensation in the pit of his stomach that told him he’d made a huge mistake. He should have left the book on the ground where it lay. Caleb was still looking at the book with a blank expression, and Fjord set it down quickly, wanting nothing to do with it. “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I figured you’d want to try to figure it out, given more time. Didn’t mean to offend.”

Across the way, Molly was staring at his swords with a look of deep and dreadful distaste. Fjord watched as Caleb put out a hand and took the book gingerly, as though it might bite him. In the background, Nott was apologizing frantically to Jester for something, but Caleb wasn’t paying attention, for once. 

“I should never have tried a spell I didn’t fully understand,” he said quietly. “We are fortunate that the spell did nothing. It could have been far worse.” 

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Fjord reminded him. “‘Sides, all’s well that ends well, as they say.”

Caleb gave a crooked grin at that. “So they do.” 

Peace fell over the camp as Fjord went back to stir the food, whistling an old tune. A quiet fondness settled in his heart as he served up food for what was, by any measure, an ungrateful bunch of weirdos. It didn’t matter, though. They were his ungrateful weirdos. 

“That’s it,” Yasha announced suddenly. “I’ve got to go.”

“No!” Beau toppled out of a tree where she had been doing some mighty impressive inverted sit-ups. “I mean, why?”

Yasha looked supremely uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I feel strange today - sort of all over the place. I don’t want to be here any more right now.”

And as Yasha was Yasha, that was all there was to be said. They made plans to meet up along the way, and waved goodbye, then ate breakfast in a thoughtful silence. 

“You know, technically I think she’s right, technically,” Jester said at last. “I think there’s something weird about this place, you guys.”

“How do you mean, weird?” Fjord asked. 

“Well, I don’t know!” Jester said with an elaborate shrug. “I just don’t really feel like myself here, and I don’t want to feel like anything but me, you know? I don’t want pixies messing with my brain, you guys!”

“Think it’s too late for that,” Beau muttered, and Molly snorted with surprised laughter. 

They struck camp quickly, all relieved to be headed away from the previous night’s danger, and Fjord found himself glad to be on the move again. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d remained while still in the vicinity of the attack. The day was fine and clear, and faithful old WC pulled the cart along at a decent pace. They had all the time in the world, and nothing more to do than enjoy the temporary respite from danger as they made their way toward their eventual destination. 

So it didn’t make a great deal of sense that he was beginning to feel pressed for time. He hurried the horse along a few times, urgency beginning to creep up his spine. They needed to get moving. Another night out in the open might be too much to risk - but, then, towns were dangerous as well. Nott was always in danger when their little party go too close to others. They needed to hurry, to find something like safety, to get gone before they caught up-

Jester stopped dead in the road and stamped one foot, flinging her hands up in the air. “That is just the stupidest thing!”

They all stopped at once, looking at her in surprise. “What?” Beau asked suspiciously. 

“We aren’t even being followed!” Jester declared, turning in a circle and gesturing around her. “Why do we need to rush here or there? Aren’t we having fun just traveling?”

Fjord frowned, beginning to feel slightly suspicious. “Nobody said anything about hurrying or being followed,” he began. 

“I know! So why are we rushing like crazy people?” 

They had been, Fjord realized. WC was tired and sweaty, Nott had scrambled up on Caleb’s shoulders after apparently wearing herself out trying to keep up on tiny legs, and they’d come much farther than he had realized. 

“But it does feel like we’re being followed, doesn’t it?” Molly’s voice was sharp, suspicious. “So are we being followed, or is someone making us think we are?”

“I don’t know,” Fjord said slowly. “How would we be able to tell?”

“Oh!” Jester exclaimed. “You know what we should do? We should cross the stream! Some kinds of creatures can’t cross over running water. Maybe if it’s something doing this to us, it’ll stop!”

“And if someone is following us, crossing might help us shake ‘em,” Beau added. The rarity of those two agreeing on a course of action was enough to settle the matter, and Fjord swung the cart off the beaten path towards the water. 

“We’ll cross for a bit, and travel on the other side. We can pass back over if we lose sight of the road,” he called over his shoulder as he searched for an easy place for the horse to make the crossing. The stream was wide but fairly shallow. 

But water. Water posed risks of its own, and Nott sometimes was so bothered by it, though who knew why. And Fjord clearly had his own issues with water; who knew whether it was a good idea for him to be faced with a water crossing? It might be a -

He stopped dead, and Beau walked straight into the back of the cart. 

“Now why, for the love of little green apples, am I worrying myself about my *own* reaction to water?” Fjord called out, turning to face the rest of them. “I know perfectly well that I’m fine with water.”

“I was just thinking that!” Nott said quickly. “But you’re not frightened of water! And I am, but not if Caleb’s carrying me, because I know he’s not going to let it hurt me. So who is doing the worrying?”

Everyone was looking around with similar looks of confused recognition, and Fjord realized they’d all been feeling it - the same random burst of worry. It was deeply unsettling. 

“At least whoever it is is worried for us?” Jester tried. “Maybe someone who wants to help us?”

“Ooooh,” Nott murmured, a sigh of pleased surprise. “Nobody ever wants to do that! Maybe we’ll make another friend!”

The burst of warm, brilliant affection for the little goblin hit Fjord so hard he almost staggered backward, and Molly actually clutched his chest. 

“It’s YOU!” Beau shouted, pointing at Caleb. “Oh gods, gross. Now I have parental emotions all over me!” She brushed at her skin as if trying to remove the sensations. 

“What are you talking about?” Caleb asked, wrinkling his forehead at them all. “What is wrong with all of you today?”

“You!” Jester agreed, nodding franticly. “Caleb, you’re vomiting your feelings all over the place!”

“That does not make any kind of sense,” he argued - but Fjord could feel tendrils of concern creeping around his heart. What if?

“I’ve never heard of such a thing before, and I’ve been around a bit,” Molly said. “I suspect we’re all just a bit paranoid after what we’ve been through recently. Let’s just keep going, cross the stream like we said, and try to put this behind us, eh?”

Jester marched up to Caleb, somehow managing to look imposing despite the several inches of height he had on her, and poked him in the chest. “Hey Caleb,” she said loudly. “How about while we’re at the stream you take a *bath*? How about that, huh? You could wash your hair and everything!”

The wave of terror that rushed through them at that actually made Fjord’s stomach turn. Nott was somehow down on the ground between Jester and Caleb in an instant, hissing, and Jester walked back a few quick steps, looking shocked. 

“Ooohhh,” she breathed quietly. “I didn’t know.”

A hot rush of shame swept over them, making Fjord’s ears burn, and he dropped the reigns and made straight for the little group at the center of the drama. Caleb was breathing shallowly, looking around with a growing panic that Fjord could feel in his own veins, in the tightening of his stomach. He would run at any second, Fjord was certain. He weighed his options, ruthlessly shutting out the wild surge of emotion that threatened to drown him. He barely managed to get a hand on Caleb’s arm before the wizard tried to bolt, and at his touch, the panic screamed up into a higher register still -trapped, like an animal, a howling fear that resonated in every part of him. 

Nott screamed, feral and awful, curling into a tiny ball on the forest floor, and at once the fear let go of the iron grasp it had established on their hearts. Molly backed up a few paces, back against the wagon, and breathed hard. 

Caleb took a moment to come back, reminding Fjord oddly of his demeanor when he was looking through Frumpkin’s eyes, and then shook his arm irritably in Fjord’s grasp. “Let go! She needs me.” Stunned, Fjord let go of the scrawny wrist and watched as Caleb dropped to his knees, trying to get through to Nott, who was still wailing. 

“This is really, really weird, you guys,” Beau said slowly. Her forehead was wet with sweat, and she was clutching her staff with white-knuckled fists. “I don’t like it.”

“Do you not like it, or does he not like it?” Jester asked quickly, her voice shriller than usual. “Do we still have feelings of our own, or are we only feeling Caleb’s feelings? I don’t want to feel Caleb all the time!”

Fjord stood still, trying to get hold of what emotions were his own and what was being broadcast out so loudly from their ragged friend. Some of it was obviously Caleb - the underlying panic, now mostly suppressed; the tender care for Nott, who was finally calming, drying her eyes quietly in Caleb’s arms; the thumping sensation of shame and self-awareness, feeling exposed in the most deeply personal way. He shuddered, and the pity he felt was all his own. 

“What the bloody hell are we supposed to do?” Molly asked, finally creeping closer. “We can’t go on like this.”

“Well. I think we have to assume it was that spell which did this,” Caleb said, and Fjord’s mouth dropped open as he stared at him. Despite the horrible rushing tide of emotion he could feel emanating from the wizard, his voice was as utterly calm and steady as it had ever been. He would never have guessed at what lay beneath it. “Whether this was the intention of the spell, or whether I messed it up in the casting, I don’t know.”

“So undo it,” Beau said, gesturing at him with the end of her stick. “Turn it off.”

“I think it is not that easy,” Caleb said carefully. A new wave of fear rolled forth, and they all gave a little shudder. “I am so sorry. I never meant to burden you all-“

“No,” Jester said with slightly forced cheerfulness. “We will figure this out. You just work on being cheerful, okay?” She patted his shoulder - gently, now - and smiled at him. “Like this. Happy wizard!”

A pulse of warm fondness cut through some of the icy terror, and Fjord nodded in quick approval, and went to grab the reigns before WC wandered off. He grinned as he heard Jester gasp in happy surprise. “You do like me! Oohhh, I knew it! Even you cannot be grumpy forever!”

“Shut up,” Caleb said calmly, and amusement washed over them. Beau let go of her grip on her staff, and Nott pushed free of Caleb’s tight grip to climb up on his shoulders again, twisting her long fingers into his hair for support. Jester grabbed his hand and helped to pull him upright. 

“Seriously, though,” Molly said quietly at Fjord’s side as they started walking again. “We need to put an end to this now. You know a bit of magic, don’t you?”

“Nothing to handle this!” Fjord protested. “Spells end usually, don’t they? Maybe we just wait it out? Keep him safe in the meantime? We can grin and bear it.”

Molly looked more serious and older than Fjord had ever seen him, and he reached out to grab his arm. “I’m not worried about us. That man no longer has the ability to hide anything, and for people with secrets, that’s a fate worse than death. We’re spying on the inside of his heart, and now he knows it. I wouldn’t be Caleb right now for a million gold.”

Fjord’s stomach dropped as the full realization hit, and he sucked in a deep breath. If it were him in Caleb’s shoes - he shuddered. 

“There’s nothing we can do,” he murmured. “Hope it stops, or that we find someone who can end it, I suppose. In the meantime, we keep moving. It’ll be a distraction, at the very least.”

Distraction was one word for it. It was very distracting, experiencing one out of context emotion after another. Amusement at jokes he hadn’t heard, sudden deep stabs of sorrow without cause, the occasional nauseating fear and worry that slipped up unawares - all of them caught him off guard. Caleb was keeping his mouth shut and eyes down, but Fjord saw him wince every time something bad was about to hit them all. He was desperately sorry for him. 

“Uuuuuugggggghhh,” Beau groaned around midday, when Fjord was suddenly plunged into a well of self-hatred with no warning. It was sickening, like dangling over a bottomless cavern, and the yearning to let go and fall forever was painful in it’s intensity. “What’s with the emotional roller coaster, man? Can’t we just pick something and stick with it? And not this one. I hate this one.”

“I am sorry,” Caleb said formally, his words stiff and prickly - but they all felt the embarrassment and guilt under the words, and for once he didn’t seem quite so untouchable. “It is very difficult.”

“Not this, though,” Nott said quietly. She wrapped her arms around his head, cuddling it like a child with a favorite toy. “Make that one go away. We love you, Caleb.” 

The rush of warmth and joy at that was more euphoric than any of Molly’s carefully purchased “experiences” could ever be, and Fjord grinned like a fool for a while, considering how he might manage to make that happen again. A happy Caleb was nothing short of radiant, and they could all use a bit of that light at the moment. He resolved to buy the man every damn book he so much as blinked at in the next town. 

They stopped early that evening, none of them feeling up to pushing themselves any further. Beau took off for what she called a “bit of breathing room” as soon as they were settled, and no-one could really blame her. It was difficult maintaining proximity with the others, given what they were sharing. Jester scratched furiously away in her journal, Molly laid out cards in patterns that flashed and changed as quickly as his fingers could move, and Nott scrambled high up in a tree with an entire bottle of hard liquor that Fjord hadn’t known she’d even owned. 

Caleb sat apart in self-imposed exile, bent over his spellbook with an intense concentration that was liable to give them all headaches. Still, the fierce pulse of concentration was at least steady, and a relief from the ups and downs of the day. Fjord found himself feeling utterly wrung out, and turned in for the night far earlier than usual, barely remembering to tell someone to wake him for the last watch of the night. 

He woke in the middle of the night. A quick glance at the stars showed he still had a good five hours of sleep left, and it took him a moment to identify what had awoken him. 

There was a cold, curling weight in his stomach that seemed to send out icy shards of misery that shot through the rest of his body every few seconds. It felt like dying. He sat up with a pained gasp, and his eyes fell on Jester, lying a few feet from him. Her blue cheeks shone in the dim moonlight, which reflected in silvery lines off the  
teartracks on her face. 

“Do something,” she whispered, shoulders shaking with a repressed sob. “You are good with people, Fjord.”

“What’s going on?” Fjord never had possessed the gift of full understanding when he first woke up. It usually took him a while to get his bearings again, and nothing was making sense yet. “Are you hurting, too?”

“No, stupid,” she whispered fiercely, wiping at her cheeks. “Caleb is.”

Oh. Of course. Fjord looked around and spotted the human in question. He was huddled against the largest tree trunk available, clearly standing his watch. The pain pulled through him again, and Fjord grunted dully. “What’s wrong? I don’t know-“

“He’s lonely!” Jester told him. “I would go and talk to him, but this is a big thing. He will not want jokes or teasing, and that is all I have!”

Loneliness. Of course. Once she’d clarified it, Fjord could feel the ache of it down in his bones. It wasn’t something they’d felt from Caleb during the day - but, then, when did anyone ever feel at their most lonesome? He got up without another word, making his way across the camp on silent feet and carefully stepping over Nott’s little curled-up form, a few feet from Caleb. He hesitated just a moment before taking a seat beside the wizard, putting their shoulders mere inches apart and carefully not looking at his face. He wasn’t sure he could handle it if Caleb looked a fraction as desolate as he felt. 

“I remember when I was newly at sea,” he said after a moment, ignoring how Caleb startled at the sound of his voice. “After I stopped puking at every wave, I took regular watches with everyone else. There’s something about being the lone soul awake in the middle of the sea that makes a man feel mighty small.”

“I have never been to sea,” Caleb said, the blunt way of speaking that had become so familiar already giving away nothing of how he felt. 

“Could be that’s true, technically speaking,” Fjord said agreeably. “But we both know you know what I’m talking about.”

Caleb was silent a long moment. The horrible loneliness had faded a bit, and was tinged now with something like regret. “Nott and I traveled alone for a long time,” he said haltingly, when he did speak. “Before that, I was on my own for some time. Many times, it was very much not a good thing. Two is better than one.”

“And six or seven is better yet,” Fjord reminded him. “You ain’t alone now, Caleb, and you don’t have to be again if you don’t want to. Hell, if you get miserable enough on watch, wake me up. Tell me you saw a snake or something, and I’ll help you look for it. I don’t mind.”

Caleb’s back had gone ramrod straight again, and tension was vibrating off of him in waves. “That is very kind, but I am perfectly capable of standing watch alone like everyone else.” 

“Capable doesn’t come into it. Of course you’re damn capable,” Fjord snorted. “Nott’s capable of standing in front of a window full of shinies without a drink in her, too, but would you make her do that?”

Caleb twitched at that, hard enough that their shoulders made brief contact. “Of course not.”

“Well, then,” Fjord said, comfortable that his point had been made. He propped his knees up in front of him, digging his heels into the soft dirt at his feet. 

“I do not require special treatment,” Caleb snapped, startling him with both the words and the wave of irritation that hit at the same time. “And are you to help me when I am too frightened to show my face in battle, or to cross a river? If I cannot even stand watch on my own, then I am clearly a liability to this party.”

“Now hold on,” Fjord said quickly, trying to struggle out from under the weight of emotions flying at him fast - shame, gratitude that was instantly quashed, and a deep and terrible feeling that he was lacking in every way. He never had been worth anything, to begin with. He was unworthy of his place in this group, unworthy of the regard-

It was hard to keep hold of his own feelings beneath the flood of Caleb’s, and finally Fjord couldn’t bear it another moment. He swung himself around until he was directly in front of the wizard and grabbed both of the scrawny shoulders in his huge hands. “Stop that,” he growled, past the point of tolerance or diplomacy. “You stop that right now, or I’ll shake it out of your head. You’re thinking nonsense, and I got no patience for it.” Caleb looked up at him, blue eyes huge in the moonlight, and Fjord wondered distantly at the fact that Caleb wasn’t afraid of him. He could snap him in two without hardly trying, but there was no fear in any of what was pouring forth. 

Rather the opposite, really. 

“Now, I don’t want to have to get everyone up and have a lovely midnight conversation about how fantastic you are and how much we need you,” Fjord growled. “But I’ll do it if you make me, and then I suspect the second-hand embarrassment will kill us all. So unless you’re ready to be responsible for all of our deaths-“ 

Caleb snorted at that, and the pulse of amusement gave Fjord an anchor to hold to in the swell of foreign emotions. “Not like that, no,” he murmured drily. 

“Then stop. You’re with us for a reason, and if anyone here had a problem with you or your conduct, you think they’d hesitate to say something? Hell, Jester would paint it on a wall if she had an issue.”

“That’s true,” Jester’s voice came floating over the still night air, and they both stifled a bark of laughter. 

“Could you at least pretend you’re not eavesdropping?” Caleb asked the air. 

“I don’t know. Could you at least stop broadcasting to all of us how very wonderful you think Fjord is when we are trying to sleep?” Jester shot back. “I don’t know, maybe think about puppies or something instead, because you are being very distracting right now.”

Caleb buried his face in his hands, and Fjord, startled, pulled his own hands back. He wasn’t feeling any such sentiment from Caleb, which must mean it was another of Jester’s jokes. He decided to avoid analyzing whether the sudden stab of disappointment came from himself or his companion. 

“Yes, okay, I’m just going to go walk off a cliff on purpose now,” Caleb muttered. 

“Humans,” Nott muttered sleepily from five feet away. She flopped over, sprawling over the edge of her bedroll and lying half in the dirt. “Just kiss him already and give us all a break, Caleb, please.”

Fjord gaped at her, and then looked around the camp. Caleb was doing a stellar impression of a skinny, vulnerable turtle, and the rest of them were not doing a great job of pretending to be asleep. “Does anyone feel like clarifying what’s going on here?” Fjord asked, startled by his own voice as it came out an octave higher than usual. 

Beau groaned, but didn’t move an inch. “You mean you can’t feel it? Lucky.”

“If it helps, I spent half the day thinking it was me who was in love with you,” Molly piped up. “Thankfully, I was wrong. If it helps.”

Fjord frowned. He could feel Caleb’s annoyance with them all pouring forth, and also the particular mixture of warm fondness he’d already become familiar with as Caleb’s particular form of affection for the group. The loneliness was gone, and that was a positive good, but there was no hint of anything more towards himself. Fjord swallowed the disappointment that realization caused, and hesitantly put a hand back on Caleb’s shoulder. A chorus of voices immediately groaned, and he snatched his hand back like he’d been burned. 

“Twenty-four hours of this, and I am quite ready to give up magic forever,” Caleb muttered into his hands. “I am never reading another spell so long as I live.”

Just then, Fjord felt something shift in the air around him. It took a moment for the realization to hit, but when it did, he collapsed back at Caleb’s side in relief. 

Caleb’s emotions were gone. He was alone in his own head again, and, judging by the sighs of relief from the camp, so were the others. 

“It’s done!” He reached out to shake the wizard gently by one shoulder again. “The spell faded, it seems.” 

Caleb peered out from behind his hands, his face flushed awkwardly red even in the dim light. “Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Jester called. “Now go away because we are finally able to get some sleep! We will talk about all of Caleb’s feelings problems another time, okay?”

Caleb buried his face in his hands again at that, and Fjord couldn’t help but chuckle. “At least it’s over, right?”

“Oh yes, I am so glad now that all of my friends know all of my secrets,” he muttered, sounding more bitter than Fjord had known him before. 

Fjord took a deep breath. He remembered how once, on a whim, he’d leaned out over the edge of the ship to watch as the line was dropped into dark, clear water. He remembered the sensation of depth and danger, and of feeling like he was barely being held up above it. It had been the same mixture of exhilaration and terror that he felt now - but after a full day of dealing with far worse ups and downs, he hardly cared. Gently, he took Caleb by the wrists and dragged his hands away from his face. He looked full at Fjord, clearly startled. 

“Can’t say as I mind some of them too much, if they’re true,” Fjord murmured. “Can’t say you’re the only one with secrets to share, either.”

He could feel Caleb’s heart rate and breathing speed up, and grinned to himself. Some things were easier to read than others, even without magical assistance. 

And some things apparently benefited from a bit of a push to get them going, magical or otherwise. With a world-weary sigh, Nott got up, wrapping herself in her blanket and stumbled over to them. 

“Go,” she said with a jerk of her head. Her strange, scratchy voice was suddenly one of the nicest things Fjord had ever heard. “I’ll finish the watch. You two go be gross somewhere else.”

Caleb jumped up like a scalded cat, looking half-frantic to be far away from there, and Fjord followed with a grateful smile at the girl. 

As they walked away in the darkness toward the edge of the steam, Caleb stumbled over two tree roots in quick succession, and Fjord reached out without thinking to take his hand. Caleb stopped dead at the touch, and tilted his head to one side. 

“What’s wrong?” Fjord asked, hand moving quickly to grab his weapon. 

“Just thinking,” Caleb said, a brilliant grin creeping up until Fjord swore he could almost feel the emotion, faded spell be damned. “I am glad that spell is gone now.”

“Me too.” Fjord felt an answering smile creeping over his face, and squeezed Caleb’s hand a little tighter. “Now, I believe we’re under orders to go away and be gross?” 

“Goblins,” Caleb said wryly, shaking his head, but Fjord could see his love for Nott blazing from his eyes. 

And if they followed orders, no-one but the two of them would ever know. There were so many things that needed to be discussed and hashed out, and they clearly needed a protocol for testing spells before trying them in battle- 

Caleb pulled him forward, and Fjord gave up planning and strategizing, and just let himself feel. It wouldn’t last, but for right now?

It was good.


End file.
